Jazz and blues singer, who won fame in the 1930s with swing renditions of traditional songs. By the late 1930s Sullivan became one of the foremost women in jazz. A black, female vocalist in America, she inspired a generation of young musicians like Ella Fitzgerald. Though largely absent from the jazz scene in the 1950s, she returned to perform in the late 1960s, at one point turning out an album every three months. She never retired and continued to work till her death.